The transmission rates for local area networks (LANs) that use unshielded twisted pair cabling have progressively increased from 10 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) to 100 Mbps. Multilevel Threshold-3 (MLT-3) is a bandwidth efficient line code that is employed in one of the most popular data transmission schemes for LANs, i.e., 100 Base-TX Ethernet, which has a data rate of 100 Mbps. FIG. 1 illustrates the mapping of data bits to the corresponding output signals in accordance with the MLT-3 code. As shown in FIG. 1, data bits are encoded in accordance with the MLT-3 code using three signal levels (+1, 0, −1), where a data bit with a logic value of one (1) causes a transition of the MLT-3 signal and a data bit with a logic value of zero (0) leaves the MLT-3 signal unchanged. It is noted, however, that the MLT-3 signal sequences (1, 0, 1), (1, −1), (−1, 0, −1) and (−1, 1) are not allowed according to the MLT-3 code.
When MLT-3 coded signals are transmitted through a dispersive channel, the received signals will be corrupted by intersymbol interference and noise. A number of systems have been disclosed or suggested for processing MLT-3 coded signals, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,115,418 and 6,178,198. FIG. 2 illustrates a receiver architecture 200 that is typical of such prior art receiver designs. As shown in FIG. 2, the exemplary conventional receiver 200 includes an equalizer 210 that cancels the intersymbol interference (ISI) in the received signal, rn. The equalizer 210 can be implemented as a linear equalizer or a decision-feedback equalizer, in a known manner. Thereafter, a three-level slicer 220 performs symbol-by-symbol detection to generate MLT-3 signal values of −1, 0 or 1. Finally, an MLT-3 decoder 250 converts these detected MLT-3 signals into data bits, in accordance with the mapping shown in FIG. 1.
While the receiver architecture 200 shown in FIG. 2 has relatively low complexity, the receiver 200 suffers from a number of limitations, which if overcome, could greatly improve the decoding of MLT-3 signals. Specifically, the receiver architecture 200 shown in FIG. 2 achieves only sub-optimum performance as it performs symbol-by-symbol detection. Thus, conventional MLT-3 receivers, such as the receiver 200 shown in FIG. 2, exhibit unacceptable bit error rates in applications where the channel impairments are severe, as is the case for high-speed data communications over copper. A need therefore exists for an improved receiver architecture for the detection of MLT-3 coded signals in the presence of ISI and noise.